


Thicker Than Water

by sunjolras



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Set in Season 3, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-09
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 16:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/587662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunjolras/pseuds/sunjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's nothing like an injured werewolf climbing through his window to lend Stiles a little perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thicker Than Water

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a hurt!Derek with talk of Mama Stilinski prompt. So here's the thing I did.

Derek wasn’t healing fast enough.

The thought repeated itself in Stiles' mind until he was dumb with it, filling him up and strangling his common sense. He no longer cared that the Alphas were prowling around outside his house, trying to find a way past the mountain ash Deaton had helped Stiles incorporate into the foundation and walls of his home. Their laughter drifted through his open window as he struggled with Derek’s weight and they asked how his ‘adorable little wolf’ was holding up. They shouted that he wouldn’t last the hour.

Stiles was too preoccupied by the blood spilling over Derek’s hands to ask how it’d happened. For a second, Derek’s face tensed, the repelling magic slicing through him. Stiles recalled what Deaton had told him and concentrated on making the boundary accept the werewolf. Derek collapsed onto his side as soon as Stiles helped him over the windowsill, grunting at the impact. Stiles slammed the window shut and was exceedingly grateful for his dad’s night shifts. Stiles pushed at Derek’s shoulder to roll him onto his back, his hand coming away red and wet.

Swearing under his breath, Stiles pressed a clean shirt on top of what looked like the source of Derek’s bleeding and reached under his bed for the well-stocked first aid kit he’d stashed there months ago. With slippery fingers, he grabbed his phone and dialed Deaton’s number.

“Pick up, for the love of god pick up,” he muttered, pulse stuttering under his skin.

On the four ring, the vet answered. “What can I do for you, Stiles?”

Stiles didn’t even know where to start.

“The Alphas got Derek and he’s not healing and I don’t know what to do,” he said, the words rushing out of him.

_Please just tell me what to do._

Deaton let out a quiet breath, but remained calm, as usual.

“Keep him alive.”

The line went dead and Stiles struggled to breathe as Derek bled out on his floor.

Now was not the time for that, though. Hesitation no longer had a place in Stiles’ life. Gritting his teeth, he set to work, sucking in a deep breath as he shoved Derek’s hands aside in order to survey the damage.

“Stiles.” Derek choked out the warning, voice strained. “Don’t look.”

A distant, relatively stable part of Stiles’ brain recognized that his habit of not listening to Derek might get him killed one day.

Stiles knew how anatomy worked, how the soft organs fit under vulnerable flesh and tough muscle. He’d seen the diagrams and skimmed the words. He knew exactly where it all fit. Derek’s insides were shiny and Stiles was never supposed to know that. Stiles figured the only reason Derek hadn’t gone into shock was his healing power, sluggish as it was.

“It’s not even that bad,” he tried to say, his grin feeling distorted before it even reached his face.

Derek managed to snort and the movement distended his stomach for a split second, stretching the mangled flesh. Stiles’ jaw clenched, his throat working to swallow the sour vomit that rose at the ugly sight. He silently placed a sterile dressing over the open wound, being careful to avoid putting pressure on it, and didn’t know what else to do for Derek. Helplessness was becoming a familiar sensation, filling his mouth with an acrid taste. The list of advantages to being human was getting depressingly short.

“What were you even doing here?” he finally asked, slightly out of curiosity and mostly to keep Derek focused on something other than pain.

Derek licked his lips before speaking, and Stiles noticed how pale they looked.

“I think Gerard’s still alive, thought you should know.”

A burst of hysterical laughter ripped itself out of Stiles’ lungs.

“Cause clearly we didn’t have enough problems,” he chuckled, pressing his palms to his forehead and leaving red smudges.

He suddenly realized that his room smelled like blood and he wondered how long it would take to scrub the splotches out of his carpet this time.

“I’m sorry,” Derek murmured, staring up at the ceiling blankly.

Stiles couldn’t even muster the energy to pretend that it was okay. If anything, he should be the sorry one. He should be apologizing for taking a morbid interest in a dead body left in the woods. Curiosity did kill the cat. Funny how the saying didn’t mention how long it took for the cat to die.

“I’m sorry for digging up your sister,” he blurted out, a year and a half late.

Derek turned his head to the side, the curve of his jaw a refusal of forgiveness, and Stiles accepted that. Laura was an unknown shadow to Stiles, Derek’s unspoken love for her and her death the only information any of them had. Stiles mused that he would have either immediately adored her or despised her. Nothing like the creeping tolerance and grudging fondness he had for her brother.

“We cremated my mom,” Stiles continued, settling back against his dresser.

He hadn’t been in the room for that conversation and had found out after the fact, his mom protecting him from his grief even toward the end. At that point, she had remembered that she had a son about half of the time.

“I was so pissed. I broke a lamp and sliced my hand open on accident,” he told Derek, shaking his head. “I was a dumb kid.”

He’d bled all over their white rug and his dad hadn’t spoken a single word on the ride to the hospital. It hadn’t been Stiles’ first time getting stitched up, he’d known the nurses on a first-name basis since he was eight, but he’d cried the whole time.

“That’s not dumb,” Derek said, expression still closed off.

Stiles was a little bitter that Derek had never needed hospital visits for the things he’d thrown and smashed and destroyed to deal with his loss. He’d never heard his father say, his entire body echoing the missing half of himself, “I thought we were done with this place.”

“Maybe I just wanted to touch her again, you know?” Stiles asked,  folding his arms over his chest.

It struck Stiles that the Alphas could undoubtedly hear every word of the conversation and Stiles wanted to feel the weight of a baseball bat in his hands. The urge to beat at their skulls until they forgot burned through him.

After a long moment, Derek finally looked at him again and the dried blood speckled on his chin made him seem unbearably fragile.

“It’s not the same.”

No, Stiles supposed, it’s not.


End file.
